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CW: CSA and suicide. These pieces explore themes of trauma, grief, and the burden of memory, confronting the emotional weight of personal experiences. The Weight of a Name It wasn’t the violence depicted on TV, not bruises, nor scars. Just fear and shame              of what              I let happen to my body; I knew I was wrong. I knew I’d be in trouble. I knew I was impure. I knew I became damaged goods. At tender six, I didn’t want to tattle. I longed to be swallowed  whole, to be palatable,                           ignorable. There is no beauty in chewing  childhood wounds. I never imagined the term. It only happens one way: she asked for it. I felt complicit, burdened. The burden, complicit, too, in my silence. With words on my tongue, the weight  of expectation presses me  to cloister pain  with pretty little words. I quantify the unspeakable,  unable to assign a name, even  though I see an r-word, as clear as Rumpelstiltskin. Will speaking it give me power? Your Suicide was Searing Steam from a Pressure Valve After you, brother, the constant  question mark answered. No more sweating, no more creaking under your strain,  no more swinging tightrope begging, “stop me.” The news erased you, lifting weight from my heart, cell by cell, unloading baggage, beat by beat. No more conversations prematurely ended. Your connection, a permanent dial tone  between my ears. Your line, dead. No more pleading  with strangers  to knock on your door, to check your breathing, if you’re still holding on by that fragile thread. No more prayers tossed into the void. I felt the guilty tingle  of relief, of no more  sleepless nights. I felt the guilty truth of this final call; I released a shameful breath of fear put to bed. Driving Home from the Festival While the road stretches ahead like a silver thread, unspooling endless veins  of a sleeping giant, we drive, headlights seeking to outrun  the past,  the present, the future  waiting to unfold velvet dark. In the hush of twilight, it is not the stars that fail us, but our internal flames, dimmed by the weight of living. Stars cradle moons in lullabies, a celestial balm while souls sail on stardust to escape earthly tides, this gravity well  of sorrow.  A cosmic disappointment drapes over the rearview: the sky mirrors  a canvas of unfulfilled  desires. It is not the stars that fail us, but the road, ever winding,  that tethers us to unyielding asphalt, the here , the now . A constant movement; this ceaseless  journey without end. Maudie Bryant (she/her) is a mother, educator, and multidisciplinary artist living in Shreveport, Louisiana. Her work explores the complexities of memory and identity, often looking into the depths of human experience and surveying the disquiet that lurks beneath the surface. A graduate of the University of Louisiana Monroe with an M.A. in English, Maudie’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Anodyne Magazine, Susurrus,  and Spellbinder .

There’s something beautiful about December, as she slinks from the sun. And, we climb to our roofs with cracked knuckles and chapped lips, to fumble with knots to untangle our light to banish the dark. Joseph Lezza is a writer in New York, NY. Holding an MFA in creative writing from The University of Texas at El Paso, his work has been featured in, among others, Variant Literature, The Hopper, Stoneboat Literary Journal, West Trade Review, and Santa Fe Writers Project. His debut memoir in essays, "I'm Never Fine," is due out February 2023 from Vine Leaves Press. When he’s not writing, he spends his time worrying about why he’s not writing. His website is  www.josephlezza.com  and you can find him on the socials @lezzdoothis.

I hunt through the soft cheeses for a chunk of Roquefort. Cheese shouldn't be the focus—not French cheese, not at Whole Foods—the priciest store—not when my checking account balance is so low. But the comfort from the green neon sign and the promise of health and fulfillment soothes me like a balm.  Palming cheese, I picture stashing it in my pocket, anticipating the chill against my thigh through the fabric. It's small enough, just a wedge. I could walk through the swoosh of the automatic doors into the sizzling sun and scrape gooey cheese off my leg during the drive home—all to avoid charging $5 to the credit card.  I cradle the hunk against my fluttering heart and recall my latest promising audition—a promo for a pharmaceutical company in which I played a doctor recommending a new eczema drug. I’ll (hopefully) hear from my agent very soon about a callback.  Oh, to not feel the terrible twist in my belly whenever the balance receipt shoots out from the ATM, the thermal paper warm with judgment. The hairs on my arms stand to attention. I check the price of the cheese: $5.75 for a bleu. Well, cheaper than bail for shoplifting. The cheese is tiny all alone at the bottom of the basket.  My cell pings as I head for the grapes. The screen displays a flower emoji and a heart emoji. It's him, and I smile. Heart emoji . That’s a step .  A fellow actor - also broke - we met while performing in a play. What is he, exactly? Boyfriend? Occasional lover? He doesn't like labels. I text: Nice… hearts to you. Come over for dinner later?  He texts: … Can't. Working until 1 am.   Miss you tho. He moonlights as a DJ for his cousin's Bar Mitzvah business. We say "hearts" instead of love. I mean love but I’m not sure he does. I glance at my scuffed shoes. Yesterday, I hiked up the Palisades Canyon to the cliffside. The ocean was a glimmering shade of aqua dotted with white sailboats. It looked magical, the breeze light enough that not even a ripple danced across the water. Everything seems possible when you are that high up.  I text back: Aw. I wanna relax with wine, cheese, TV & you. (Sad face emoji) I shouldn't have mentioned wine because now I want wine. Is there a $10 bottle or less that won’t remove the enamel from my teeth?  A frizzle of ache shimmies down my spine as other shoppers casually place items in carts, oblivious to price, their clothes cost more than I probably make in a week as a part-time caterer.  Every night I bolt awake: How can I make more money? How many more jobs can I do? I read somewhere that Tom Cruise once tipped a server thousands because he knew she was going through a rough time. Where can I find Tom Cruise??? The DJ didn’t return my text. The three dots appear and fade away to nothing. His communiqués offer slivers of hope but are reminders that I only get crumbs.  I drop the basket and crouch. An untamed hunger thrums through my body, pulsing to the beat of the piped-in music. I unwrap the cheese and shove the creamy mound into my hot mouth. My fingers are stained slate blue and smell like gamey socks, but I lick off the cheese. Every. Last. Bite. I stalk the snacks aisle, which is usually off-limits for me but I don’t care. A frivolous box of vegan crackers, truffle mustard, canned octopus. Fancy pre-packaged eclairs. Dried porcini mushrooms and Ponzu sauce. A frenzy builds inside me, like a poked beehive. The stink of Roquefort taunts me.  Up in that canyon yesterday I promised to the air, to the ocean, to the squirrels lurking in scrub brush: I will get out of debt and I will be an actor!   Oh, yesterday.   Aisle by aisle, I rip things from shelves until the basket heaves. And I get the damn wine.  Michelle Furnace Brosius is a writer, recovering former actor, and occasional French speaker, newly transplanted to beautiful Oregon with her husband and two cats. Her stories and essays have appeared in Bending Genres, Scarlet Leaf Review, the (late) personal finance site The Billfold, Medium, and other various places.

Standing on the front porch is a little bright-eyed wren of a woman with a nimbus of untamed white curls; she’s wearing a black dress that has seen better days. “My deepest condolences, dear. Amanda was a very special friend, and her loss is incalculable,” says Sarah Lincoln to the woman who answers the door. “I’m one of her friends from the book club. And you must be the beautiful daughter Jennie she bragged so much about.” “No, I’m Melanie, Joshua’s wife. Please come join the visitation.” Stepping in, the old woman beams, “The one with the twins! They delighted her so.” “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” Melanie says as she ushers the woman toward the living room where thirty or so mourners, family members, and friends are gathered in quiet groups or around a potluck spread laid out in the adjoining dining room.  “My name is Helen McAdams,” is Sarah Lincoln’s well-rehearsed reply. “Helen? I don’t remember her mentioning –” She trails off as she catches the flash of disappointment in the woman’s eyes, adding, “I didn’t know she was in a book club.”  The older woman confides, “Our guilty secret. We read trashy romances and call ourselves ‘ Nine Shades of Gray’ and –” Her voice catches. “Now it’s just eight. Poor Amanda!” Blinking away tears, “And I’m worried about Jenny Endrich. She looked so frail at the last meeting.” “Yes, so sad. Thank you for coming.” Melanie is saved from further book club drama by the bell. “I need to get that, er –” “Helen,” Sarah Lincoln reminds her. “Yes, Helen. Join her other friends and family, and please help yourself to something,” gesturing toward the food. “Oh, I will. I will. Could you please point me to the bathroom first?”  The doorbell chimes again, and Melanie points to a side hall. “Two doors down on the right.” Once locked in the bathroom, Sarah washes her face and touches up her minimal makeup, appraising herself in the mirror for a moment. How did it come to this: the vibrant, daring, live-for-the-moment hippie chick devolved into a decaying crone whose life now consists of funeral after funeral? She frowns as she opens the medicine cabinet. Then she smiles. There’s a partly filled prescription bottle of Eliquis, retailing for up to $500 without insurance, and another unopened bottle! Those go in her handbag first. They’ll fetch probably $300 at a good nursing home. And look, a full 90-day supply of Oxy. She can get $15 apiece for them on the street. She tucks these down in her purse, too. Leaving the bathroom, she checks the hallway. It’s clear, so she moves down to the largest bedroom. A quick scan tells her that, unbelievably, no one in the family seems to have grabbed up the good jewelry yet. There is a gold ring with a sizable sapphire and some ruby and pave diamond studs in the jewelry box; those she tucks into a small pocket hidden along the seam of her dress. She takes the pearl necklace, too, though her fence gripes the resale market for pearls is shit. If nothing else, she can wear them to the next funeral, add some pearl-clutching cred to her front.  Looking as if she lost her way, she wanders back to the dining room, but no one is paying attention. The solitary superpower of being an old gray woman: invisibility.  She loads up a plate with her first meal of the day. She can afford to be a bit picky in her selections; the newspaper’s obituary for Peter O’Donnell says the wake starts at five, so there’ll surely be something for supper along with the drinks and speeches. She nods and murmurs condolences to the few mourners circling the table, but mentally, she’s running through the details she gleaned from the O’Donnell listing. Three sons. Ten grandchildren. Wife predeceased. Donations in lieu go to the Humane Society.  So, I’ll be Helen from the Humane Society. She suppresses a smile . Then, grab the goods and I’ll be Helen Gone . She never tires of that joke. Once her plate is full, she finds an overstuffed chair to sink into. Eat, rest her feet for ten minutes – it was a long bus ride and walk to get to the visitation, and another coming up in a few hours. She’ll be Helen Gone from here before anyone starts missing loot, though. Besides, she’s going to be stuck in a chair plenty tomorrow, sitting Shiva at the Rosenfeld home. Very tony neighborhood. Art collector, according to the write-up. Should be some treasures to be found there. Between bites of marinated mushrooms, she sighs, thinking again for the umpteenth time: It’s criminal how hard you’ve got to work to be retired. Boyd Blackwood has earned his living from writing for his entire career in the fields of advertising and magazine non-fiction. These days, his passion is “less is more” fiction.

How long had we been staring at her tiny body? Twenty seconds? Twenty minutes? She was doing her magic trick: breathing in through her chestnut nose, swelling and deflating. We were leaning over the cot, inhaling her second-hand air; it did us no good, but we didn’t care.  Brought us closer together.  Us. You and me and her.  She was our queen to be protected. She was an enemy, bent on our destruction.  I made a ‘T’ sign with my index fingers. You smiled, and we tip-toed to the kitchen, weary and defeated and happy. I boiled the kettle.  Six o’clock in the morning. We should have slept. She’d had us up since five.  You’d leaped from the bed like you’d been half awake waiting to feed her. I’d been half asleep. I followed you in useless solidarity. She screamed as I held her while you unpacked a babygrow, dry and white and new. Did you tut when you took her from me? Annoyed that I’d failed to soothe her? Hard to tell in the dark.  She wouldn’t latch, you said, demanding explanations from me with your eyes. Why wasn’t she hungry? Was the nappy too tight?  ‘I could make a bottle,’ I said. ‘Try the breast again in the morning?’  You burned me alive.  And then, without reason, she locked her lips to you, and the consumption began. Her mothwing eyelids fell and twitched, her cheeks pulsating in their hungry rhythm. Your shoulders loosened.  We sipped the tea in silence.  She woke again as I tidied away our cups. In the hours most people call mid-morning, I ran errands to busy away the last days of my paternity leave.  * Handshakes in the corridors, slaps on the back, a gentle cheer in the canteen. Like I’d just returned from war. Steven brought a box of mini muffins from Tesco.  ‘Welcome back, Karlo,’ he said. ‘Fair play to you.’ ‘Ah thanks, it’s been brilliant. Glad I took the full month.’ It was over the top, embarrassing and lovely.  Nobody asked me to do anything until lunchtime. Then I was back in my cleanroom coveralls, facemask and goggles for the first time since she was born. Back to watching an automated production line fill sterile syringes by the thousand. Would anyone notice if I slept standing up?  She was napping when I got home. I thought you’d be happier to see me.  ‘Should we not wake her so she sleeps tonight?’  ‘Don’t you dare,’ you said. ‘That’s the first decent nap she’s had.’  I told you about the new antibody we’d started making, but you seem distracted.  ‘It’s a TNF inhibitor?’ I said. ‘For arthritis, but there’s trials in psoriasis and Crohn’s.’  ‘That’s another language from another planet.’ ‘No worries,’ I said. ‘You’ll catch up when you come back. What’s for dinner?’ You looked out the window.  * We zombied our way through the days and nights until she was six months and sitting up. From the spare room, the night feeds sounded less frequent, but you said her sleep was as bad as ever.   ‘I’ll move back into the bedroom next week when we’re both working,’ I said. ‘Fair’s fair.’ ‘I can’t.’  ‘Can’t what?’ ‘Put her in the creche. Not yet. Look at her.’ She was sitting in an inflatable ring, trying to eat a large plastic ball that eclipsed her tiny face.  ‘You kinda have to,’ I said.  It wasn’t an argument because we weren't shouting.  *   Our queen gave us an awful night. Like she knew her world was on the cusp of disruption. I’d been getting up to her all week since we got her onto the bottle.  I leaned against the wall, strung out, watching you pack a bag of bottles and nappies and soothers and clothes and a long list of what she likes and doesn't like and how to comfort her and how to contact us.  ‘It’s fine, it’s three hours,’ I said, flat-voiced. ‘You can pick her up at lunchtime.’ ‘Why don’t we just start properly tomorrow?’ you said. ‘What’s the point in putting her through this when I’m home doing nothing?’ ‘Let’s not, okay? You know the answer.’  A ‘dry run,’ the creche called it. A half day to get her used to the place, then six hours tomorrow and the full eight next week when you’re working full tilt again.  We barely spoke as you fixed her into the car with her silk-trimmed blanket and squeezy giraffe. I listened to the radio while you double-checked that everything was in the boot, gave her another kiss, made promises in a sunny voice and waved us off.  Morning rays warmed my face through the car window. She was asleep by the time we rounded the corner, before you had decided what to do with your half day of agonising freedom.  * The coveralls can be sweaty. I like to take mine off when the eleven o’clock break comes. Step outside the cleanroom for a breath of new air, even if it means I have to repeat the aseptic protocol before reentry.  A phone vibrated and sang in my locker as I pulled blue booties from the dispenser. Nobody ever called me except charities and scammers. I had one shoe covered in blue plastic when it rang again. I sighed and dragged my body over to the locker.  Three missed calls from you.  Stephen rapped on the window of the dressing room with boiling urgency. I pressed the door release button.  ‘What?’  ‘Little Princeton rang.’ He spat the words.  ‘Little Princeton?’ ‘The creche,’ he said.  ‘I know Little Princeton is the bloody creche.’ ‘Your wife’s trying to get through to you.’ ‘Yeah, I saw ‒ what’s up?’ ‘The creche was expecting your little one this morning.’ Gary Finnegan is an Irish writer whose work has appeared in Litro, Bull, The London Magazine, HOWL and elsewhere. He is working on a novel.

on television to capture you they show you a countdown  to christmas a countdown  to elections all pretty much interchangeable like some demented form of survival of the fittest bottled-up instant-gratification can  make in 3 easy payments  to attempt to achieve that  unreachable holy happiness that high school sweetheart  or god just couldn’t get while most just try to top it all off with either a bottle of bourbon  or bottle of opiates or if so choose to be one of those brutish one-upping competitive  extroverted idiots at health club  where can relive your whole half  witted childhood all over again  with real-life reflections in the  he-man mythological mirror as  some sort of bully or jock or stud slut bending over for the father  next door but best of all got that countdown to elections that countdown to christmas can conveniently collapse & store all safe & secure right below your bed where that monster once lived in your head Joseph D. Reich is a social worker who lives with his wife and teenage son in the high-up mountains of Vermont. He has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals both here and abroad, been nominated seven times for The Pushcart Prize, and his books include... If I Told You To Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge (Flutter Press) A Different Sort of Distance (Skive Magazine Press) Pain Diary: Working Methadone & The Life & Times Of The Man Sawed In Half (Brick Road Poetry Press) Drugstore Sushi (Thunderclap Press) The Derivation Of Cowboys & Indians (Fomite Press) The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end of the world (Fomite Press) The Hole That Runs Through Utopia (Fomite Press) Taking The Fifth And Running With It: a psychological guide for the hard of hearing and blind (Broadstone Books) The Hospitality Business (Valeviel Press) Connecting The Dots To Shangrila: A Postmodern Cultural Hx Of America (Fomite Press) A Case Study Of Werewolves (Fomite Press) The Rituals Of Mummification (Sagging  Meniscus Press) Magritte’s Missing Murals: Insomniac Episodes (Sagging Meniscus Press)  How To Shoot A Tourist (with a bow & arrow) In A Hot-Air  Balloon (Sagging Meniscus Press) How To Order Chinese During A Hostage Crisis: Dialects, Existential Essays, A Play, And Other Poems (Hog Press) American Existentialism (Tuba Press) An Eccentric Urban Guide To Surviving (Analog Submission Press) The American Book Of The Dead (Xi Draconis Books)  From Premonition To Prophecy (Delinkwent Scholar Press) Statutes Of David (Pen & Anvil Press) Aphoristic Variations: a trilogy (Makeshift Press) I Know Why Old Men Sit In Front Of Windows All Day, Sighing & Crying & Living & Dying When The Sun Goes Down On The City At Night (Kung-Fu Treachery Press) A Case Study Of The Amerikan Dream: the secret life of lounge singers (gnOme books)

Loading the Truck Sweat glistening on my forehead like some family heirloom I've always thought worth more than it truly is, while the rain  drops pelt me, as if spit  from a broken hearted lover, who refuses to accept grey clouds never last, and my hands weaken just enough to give me the strength to finish a chore done  because of love.  A Thriving Virus Death shaped flowers  bought with a credit card that needed a sad phone call a few hours earlier to increase the card's limit, and they say living isn't cheap, but I've learned that dying isn't either, especially as a case of beer jingled a dirge in our backseat, or was it a hymn to St. Matthew? Regardless, the interest grew like a thriving virus, smart enough to only spread sickness, and not to kill. The Folly of Being Quenched Whisky yellow like the sun, while water bottles are full  as coffins on a grey day,  when guilt louder  than a fierce rain, and we all know water is needed for life, yet underestimate thirst (literal or otherwise), grabbing us by the throat just rough enough to make us forget whatever we did wrong.

My daughter – your Wham-bam!  granddaughter – has become an almost-stranger with her Bif-boom! attitudes and Kerpow! moods . The distance between us is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g elastic-thin wide the older she grows. My calm words and sensible attitudes Rip-Roaringly ! rile her.  She reminds me of me. When my tempers Kerranged!  family meals. When I shouted ‘ Splat!’  against your politics. When my views were a Whomp!   Whomp!  to your senses. When I called you in the middle of the night drunk and troubled, and you picked me up in the car; when you picked me up from my boyfriend’s house after a humdinger, flailing-fist fight; when your spidey senses detected I was trapped in Thwapping!  deep low moods and you used your powers as a pick-me-up. The almost-stranger comes and sits next to me on the pew, her Holy Mackerel!  dress sense out in full Technicolor ™   force. We stare at your casket. We contemplate. Her hand enfolds mine.  Kaboom!  She may not speak love   but I hear it. And I hope throughout my Krassh! teenage years you, my Wow! Superhero, heard mine too. Sharon’s short stories and flash pieces have been published on-line and in magazines including Flash 500, The Phare, Fictive Dream and Bath Flash Anthology. She likes making lists, banoffee pie and having a room of her own (at last!). She dislikes the fact that Sharons are becoming an extinct species. She tweets at @SharonBoyle50  and has a blog at https://boyleblethers.wordpress.com/

Fathers Like fathers, he wasn’t around much but let’s call that the 70s. When divorces took off. so did dad. To Mexico  often enough, or at other times,  a hardened bar in Phoenix, Arizona. Once he had   drunken heat stroke and we carried him to the tub and ran to neighbor’s homes asking for ice to cover him like a cloak so he would live. He did. My whole childhood was his emergency. He did okay though. I’m alright. I’m also him. I have his voice. And his eyes, blue as the sea, blue as long goodbyes. Wreck As the car hit the rock wall, all I heard was the laugh of the kids  the way they do from the belly  and the full throated sound  of your beauty as I spun and  struck the stones and did not die. Depression I'm watching a man eat dirt in The Grapes of Wrath. I get that. The wrath, the dirt. I get that all too well. My spirit's in '29 and I never got better. Robert Allen lives in Oakland, CA with his family where he writes poems and coaches poets to be better in their craft. www.robertallenpoet.com

“Open up, you useless fat fuck!”              Someone is banging on Heath’s front door. It’s late. Heath lives in the upstairs apartment of a rundown duplex. The person banging looks like a slimmer version of Heath with the same red hair, the beginnings of a red beard.             “Leave your father alone!” Heath’s girlfriend, Nancy, yells out of the second story window.              “Shut up, you fucking whore.”              “That’s it,” Heath declares as he heaves himself off the sofa. He lumbers down the stairs and opens the front door. His son spits in his face.              “That’s from me. And mom.” Heath’s son turns and jumps off the rotting wooden porch. He passes the cab to Heath’s truck, parked on the small patch of mangy grass that suffices for a front lawn and spits on it, too, before heading up the street.              Heath stands at the open door, light pouring out from the hallway. He wipes his face with his hand, turns around, and slowly walks up the stairs that groan with each step.              “Well, he was real upset,” Nancy says.              “I know. He’s always feisty when they let him out.” His son just spent another few months in Granite Valley Correctional Facility, this time for a DUI.              “That’s no excuse. The girl downstairs must be scared to death!”    The girl, Rachael, is their neighbor, in her late 20s, who lives alone in the first-floor apartment. Her bedroom is right next to the front door. Heath knows the commotion probably woke her up.             “I’ll talk to her tomorrow, tell her there’s nothing to worry about.”              “Is that true?” Nancy asks. She is a large, solid woman. She’s worked as a health aide in a memory care center for years. She’s seen a lot of erratic behavior, but this has unnerved her.              Heath is large too.  His round fleshy face, often shiny, makes him look younger than his 40 years.              “Yeah, it’s true. Damn, I’ve got me a troubled kid.”             “22 isn’t exactly what I’d call a kid.”             “I know. But it’s like he’s missing something, you know?” When Nancy and Heath met six months before at Muckenshnabel’s bar, they spent the night talking and realized they liked each other. A lot. They came to an unspoken pact not to delve too much into their pasts. They both had suffered in different ways but had separately steadied their lives and together, wanted to look forward, not back. This was mostly okay, but there was a lot that Nancy didn’t know so she took advantage of this opening.              “Like what?”              “Like a father. I wasn’t around much.”             “I’m sure you did the best you could.”             “I should have checked in on him more, but I couldn’t stand being around his mother. All we did was fight! I guess that rubbed off on him.”             “That might have done it.” Nancy has three kids. They all live on their own now, nearby. She sees them often and checks in by phone most days. Her kids’ father died in a motorcycle accident when they were young; she never had the chance to get sick of him.              “But that’s no excuse for his behavior now. He can make his own choices. He’s a man and needs to start acting like one,” Nancy adds.              “I know. I was hoping he’d grow out of it, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. I’ll try to find out where he’s staying, go around and talk to him. I hope it’s not too late,” Heath says.  “Too late for what?”             “To mend fences. For us to be a real father and son, you know, the way it’s supposed to be. The way I’d like it to be.”             He sits back on the sagging brown corduroy sofa. Nancy goes to the kitchen and brings him a can of Coke. She touches his face, leans down to give his forehead a kiss. He opens it; the TV is muted so the soft fizz fills the air.              “You’re a good one,” Heath says, taking a sip.              “So are you, baby.” ***             “It’s just for a few days, until I find him a home!”             There is a pit bull puppy, white with a ginger face, racing around their apartment. It’s wagging its tail so hard its entire body is shaking. It gets low to the ground and squirms up to Nancy.              “Okay, he is seriously cute.” She reaches down and scratches the puppy behind its ears. It tries to lick her hand, then rolls over to expose its pink belly.              “It’s a boy!” Nancy walks to the kitchen sink and fills a shallow bowl with water, putting it down on the floor. The puppy lopes over and starts slurping, getting water all over the scuffed beige linoleum. Nancy looks at Heath and shakes her head in mock disapproval.           “You remember Ray, right? Well, he’s staying at the Econo Lodge. And there’s this other guy who’s also staying there, and this guy has this puppy, just living in his truck! And he told Ray he was going to shoot it if someone didn’t take it within a week. That sounded sad to me, so I picked it up,” Heath explains.  “Ray is friends with jerks like that?” “He’s down on his luck right about now but I don’t think this guy is his friend exactly.” “We’re not keeping the dog, right?”               “Hell no! Just taking care of it for a few days until we can find it a proper home.”             Nancy starts looking through the kitchen cupboards.              “We don’t have anything for a dog to eat here.”             “I’ll go to the store,” Heath offers.              “Remember to get puppy food. It has to say ‘puppy’ on the label. They have different needs.”             “Of course,” Heath says. He makes a list. Kibble (puppy). Collar. Leash.              “And some bones,” he says, “maybe I’ll get him something to chew on, a toy or something.”             “Good idea.”             When Heath heads out the door, the puppy lays down by it and whimpers.              “You miss your Daddy already?” Nancy says. She can’t wait to tell Heath that the dog cried for him. *** Heath is carrying a large brown bag, with a sack of dog food peering over the top, when he passes Rachael, who is sitting on the rickety porch with a mug.             “Who is that for?” she asks.              “Oh, a puppy I’m taking care of. Just for a few days.”             “I want to meet her!”             “It’s a him,” Heath says.              “I bet he’s cute,” Rachael says.              “He’s a rascal,” Heath answers then adds, “Hey, what do you think of the name Bruno?” “For the dog?”             “Yeah.”             “I thought you weren’t keeping him.”             “I’m not. But I have to call him something.”             “I think it’s a great name,” she says. “Kind of tough. Like a guard dog. Which we could use around here.”             “Hey, listen. I’m sorry about the commotion the other night.”             “That’s okay.”             “Did you hear it?”             “Yeah, I mean, it was kind of hard to ignore.”             “Were you scared?”             “I was. He sounded really angry.”             “That’s my son. He only has a beef with me. I’m trying to work it out with him.”             “Good luck,” she says with a wave of her hand. “I haven’t talked to my dad in years.”             “Why not?”             “Because he’s an asshole.”              “I’m truly sorry about that.” Heath pauses then opens his door and heads upstairs.  ***             Nancy wakes up early on Saturdays. Cleaning day. Heath is not dirty, but when Nancy moved into their two-bedroom rental three months earlier, she elevated scouring, vacuuming, mopping and laundry to high art. She even gave it its own day. She and Heath put on music, play it loudly, and talk over it as she cleans and he helps, usually futzing, moving things around while she follows closely behind with the vacuum cleaner with squeaky wheels. Add Bruno to the mixture and the ritual seems more like a circus, with him in the starring role as clown. He lunges for the vacuum cleaner, tries to bite it, then hurries away crying when Nancy pulls out the nozzle and holds it in his direction. He follows Heath, helping him to move things, and barks at the broom, trying to bite it and carry it away.              It’s a performance that Rachael hears. And they start it early, so it wakes her up. But the sounds of laughter and singing and now the puppy barking aren’t unpleasant. It sounds like a family. She hears Nancy screaming, “Bruno, stop it!” and then laughter as she and Heath keep talking over Bob Seger’s raspy voice.             “I’m going to see Shane today,” Heath is yelling.             “Hold on.” Nancy turns the music down.              “I found out he’s staying with his mom. She let him back in.”             “So, you thought you’d pay them a visit?”             “Well, him. Except he lives with her so I guess she’s part of it.”             “Will that be alright? I don’t want you getting in any trouble.”             “It’ll be fine. Or not. Hell, I really don’t know. The last time I was on the wrong side of the cell door, I was 19, and I don’t long for that view.”             “Just leave if it gets heated. Turn around. Bruno and I will be here, entertaining ourselves, won’t we Brunie Brun?” Nancy has leaned down to talk to the puppy.              “I heard there’s a dog park over by route 4, near the overpass,” Heath says.             “He’ll need shots before he’s around other dogs.”             “Well, we’ll let his next owner pay for those,” Heath says. Bruno is looking up at them, as if he knows he is the subject of conversation.              “Of course.” Nancy heads to the kitchen to get a milk-bone biscuit for the boy.  *** Heath gets out of Nancy’s Honda Fit. It looks like a toy car with his bulk; when he heaves himself out and puts his feet on the cracked asphalt, the car sighs with relief.              He’s holding a makeshift pack to his eye, some ice in a plastic bag the cashier at Circle K gave him. He usually gets a root beer float there - they have the best vanilla ice cream and the freshest soda, he maintains - but his stomach was feeling queasy.              Rachael is sitting outside again.              “Holy shit! What happened there?” She points to his face.              “Oh, I got into a bit of a scuffle.” Heath’s eyes are red and watery.              Rachael doesn’t say anything but keeps looking at him.              “With my son,” he says. She nods, moves her mouth to the side in a half grimace.              “Did you hit back?” she asks.             “No! No,” he says quickly. “I’ve never done that. Though now I wonder if I shouldn’t have. My boy is wild.” “I can tell!”             “I just walked away. I turned and walked away. Nancy told me to, and I do what she says.”             “I like Nancy,” Rachael says. “She’s good for our building’s morale.”             “I went to try to make things right with him, that’s all. Any ideas about how to do that? To make the time up?” Heath asks.              “Nope, none at all. I’m no help in the family department,” she says.              “Well, I’m not done trying yet. Maybe I’ll take a breather, but I’m not giving up. Family is the most important thing,” he says. Rachael nods silently.  “You like it out here,” Heath comments.              “I do. It’s the last days of summer. I like to get as much of it as I can. I don’t know, autumn always makes me melancholy.”             “I’ve never thought of the seasons like that, but I guess I can see it. I sure hate long hauls in my truck when it’s minus 20 out,” Heath says.              “So, winter makes you melancholy.”             “I guess so. I guess it does.”              Heath reaches into his jeans pocket. “Look what I got!” He holds out a leather collar with a silver tag dangling from it.              Rachael leans over to read it. The name “Bruno” is engraved on it with a phone number in small letters below.              “Whose number is that?”             “Mine. I figured he needed a proper collar.”              “So you’re keeping him?”              “I haven’t decided yet,” Heath grins.              They can hear Bruno barking loudly at Heath’s door, excited for his owner’s return.              “Get up here before this monster has a heart attack!” Nancy yells from the window.              “Yes, dear.”              Heath waves goodbye and heads upstairs.  *** The leaves are turning colors, orange and red are popping up among the green. Even though it’s sunny, there’s a chill in the air, a faint smell of burnt wood, the juggernaut toward gray days, snow and ice, when people will hunker down inside, eat soup; a lonely time for some. Heath and Nancy walk out the front door, being led by Bruno who is straining at his leash. He’s wearing a bright blue sweater that’s too large for him; his tail is wagging under the fabric that is covering it.   “H i,” Rachael says t o them. She’s sitting on the porch with a large scarf wrapped around her shoulders, a book in her lap.  “Good sleeping weather,” Heath says. “I never sleep that well,” she answers.  The three of them are focused on Bruno, who is sniffing in the grass. He starts squirming on his back, like he’s trying to scratch an itch in an out of the way spot.  “He’s not used to his sweater yet,” Nancy says.  “It’s a good color for hi m,” Rachael say s. “I picked it out. There were a lot of choices, but blue for a boy seemed right to me,” Heath explains.  “Your face is looking better,” Rachael says. The once-dark bruise below his right eye is fading, turning yellow at the edges.  “I wish I could forget how I got it.” The three of them stare down at Bruno.  “I keep telling him that he’s got to forgive himself.” Nancy breaks the silence.  “Let me ask you something,” Heath looks towards Rachael. “Is there anything your dad could do to make things right? I mean, I know it’s probably not the same situation, but I’m racking my brain here and I just can’t figure it out. I refuse to think it’s hopeless, and I’m not someone who likes to give up on things. But I just cannot seem to get this father thing right at all, and I’m not going to lie, it sticks right here,” Heath pats his chest and looks down.  Nancy rubs Heath on the back, the way a parent would, to calm a child.  “If my dad had tried, even a tiny bit, yeah. It’s not rocket science. He doesn’t even know where I live, he’s not curious enough to find out.” “Would you want to see him if he did?” Heath asks.              “No,” she says decisively. Heath’s still staring at her; his eyes are getting moist.  “But eventually, probably. Yeah, I probably would. I don’t have a lot of people in this world.” “See? Persistence, baby.” Nancy sighs with relief.  “Okay,” Heath smiles. “Persistence,” he says with a nod. “Persistence!” He points at  Rachael.  Bruno starts whining, a low impatient cry.  “I think Bruno wants to get moving,” Rachael says.  “I’m outnumbered now.” Nancy takes hold of Heath’s hand. She, Heath and Bruno head down the street for their morning walk.   Rebecca Tiger teaches sociology at Middlebury College and in jails in Vermont and lives part-time in New York City. Her stories have appeared in Bending Genres, BULL, JMWW, MER, Peatsmoke, Tiny Molecules, trampset and elsewhere.

I know you watched us. How could you not? Your damn porch light was like a spotlight that caught my skin in the strapless bikini I thought made me look older, the too short skirt that kept me standing because I didn’t know how to sit in it without losing what little decorum I had left. He was a gentleman, though. Leaning in, but never quite reaching far enough. Always a little too formal, a little too earnest, in his closed toed shoes and shirt tucked carefully into tightly cinched pants. He couldn’t take his eyes off me, but I had a hard time looking back at him.  I should have known then. I did know then. I wondered if you, too, had known what it’s like to try someone on for size, to measure their kindness and feel the weight of their care even as your stomach remains unbutterflied and your heart refuses to pick up the pace. I wanted more, of course: fireworks and rollercoasters and deep, deep dives. More than the measured steadiness he promised.  You might have told me what more awaited in that silent darkness. You might have told me that the butterflies I yearned for are really moths that eat through the fabric of your soul and pull you towards the flames that burn you. You might have told me. But I wouldn’t have listened. Not then. Amy Marques has been known to call books friends and is on a first name basis with many fictional characters. She has been nominated for multiple awards and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as  Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review,  and Gone Lawn . She is the editor and visual artist for the  Duets  anthology and of the erasure poetry book PARTS published with  Full Mood Publishing . More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com .

We went to the botanica to pick out something nice and easy to heal Tami’s marriage. I knew it was falling apart because of all of the messages she sent and received from X, each one a little more risque than the other. Some of them started with a quick, “Hey babe,” and the others, well, let’s just say she shouldn’t have accepted them.    I watched her working on another message back to him. Her hands moved back and forth on the little phone punctuated with her tapping of acrylic nails. I knew each stroke meant another lie piled on top of one another.    “Boo, don’t say a damned word,” she whispered. “I just gotta sort this out.”  I know it’s stupid to think candles or spells can fix a broken marriage. I believe it needs more, something rougher, maybe tequila and a weekend away, both of them locked in a room and fed alcohol, letting the frustration and the fury finally dissolve into a heaping bed of forgiveness. I wanted her to fight for her husband, but it wasn’t my fight at all. It wasn’t my place, not like this.  But not with those damned phones. The ones that ring from the impulse or whims of a single man, vying for the affections (and winning them) as he continues on his way. But her husband, no doubt a pendejo at times, but a good man, an honest man. Jesus, he was going to be furious when he found out. I feared that I would have to house her again. She never showed me the purple, but I knew. Angry men from bad houses leave marks. Sometimes on faces, sometimes on walls.   “Let him love you again,” I told her last year. “Let him say he’s sorry and just take him back. Just don’t act like too much of a boss and he will forget it.”  Because the new guy was threatening to “come right over and fight for her,” we had to find a curative, and the culandera was the one to help us in this moment.  I pointed to the yerbas first, asking how she felt about fire. “Pues, it’s fine, but I really need something stronger,” she lamented. “Last time I did some damned cleanse, I got pregnant. I just wanna sweep this shit right out.”  I suggested the card reader. He was a “seer,” the other women had told me.  “He can tell you things that we cannot even know in this lifetime,” Julia said. I believed her wide eyes, her earnestness. A set of red-rimmed and weary eyes followed me as we wrote our names on the clipboard. We were number 17, each of us waiting for answers and some kind of hope. We began the slow walk around the botanica to smell the yerbas again and view the miracle candles. Who knew how long this would take? Of course, Jesus was there. Burn up the right candle and your dreams fall into place. Jewelry was there too, a different aisle than the snake oil and aluminum and painted milagros. Anoint yourself properly for the miracles to be produced. It’s not too expensive, but you may just have to get the incense and the itchy, ground powders too. Either way, it’s potent medicine and I am sure Tami would be willing to do what it takes to untangle this mess. Maybe.  “I just need to know who loves me more,” she whispered. “And I don’t think I’d ever leave him, but I want to be wanted, you know?” Tami always gets like this when she’s near her period. Hysterical. In love. Flirting. And I just keep thinking to myself, “Why can’t I find a nice guy?” Why did the last one decide to up and go flirt with that puta down the street? The one whose kids walk around to the McDonald’s late to beg for some food with the money they took from her boyfriend’s pocket. I’m a nice person, I think to myself. But enough was enough, I guess.  I forgave them all. I forgave the stupid one for leaving the water boiling until the plastic bowl burnt up. I forgave the liar. I forgave the one who stole money from my worn wallet. I forgave the drunk. I tried to move on. When I found out about each one’s idiocy, I burnt a cedar stick and cleansed the front door with a new mop and my own medicine and I wore the rose water, sacred and sweet, to make sure that I would only attract the righteous, and to close off the bad energy, and mal ojos. But somehow, now I was alone.  I fingered a bracelet featuring blue eyes and a $5 price tag. “I’m going to get this for sure,” I said, motioning to the rack. “Haters gonna hate, but you gotta keep them off you, you know?”   Tami smiled. “Let’s get our cards read together,” she said.    I continued the slow circle around the shop, opening the drawers of the tiny silver and gold amulets one by one. “I like this leg,” I said to Tami. “It reminds me that no matter what happens, I can walk out quick-like and just start over, somewhere.”  She smiled and walked over to the magic candle section. I joined her and faced a row of pillared spell-reversal candles. I thought about what it meant to reverse the wicked things that had occurred. To delete the texts Tami received, and the abortion.  I stood up and picked up the candle and began to read the back. “I wish it undid the last five years,” I said. She laughed again. An old woman eavesdropping looked suspiciously at me as I put it down. I picked up the one next to it. It promised “amor.”    “And I don’t need to burn something for this,” I said. I started to laugh. The old woman crossed herself and then walked to the well-worn chair to sit and wait for her cards to be read. I hoped we would be next.   “Pero, you don’t want to mess around when you’re getting older. Who knows if your next baby will come out right, especially since you may have los ojos malos,” said Tami. She motioned to my stomach. I sat down. That’s why I had to get it done, I thought. Because of the drinking, the worry, the anxiety that maybe, just maybe, that baby, the angelito in heaven, would come back this time, to a home free from pills or booze, or a daddy that even wanted it.    She was right, of course, which was why I sat down and waited for the card reader to motion for us to come back behind the beaded curtains. Funny how these things seem ritualistic. The anxiety of waiting for the moments to align quite right. The curiosity and a ten dollar bill to fix it.    I had a lot on my mind. My own life, my baby, and the bigger question of how Tami could prevent her husband from leaving, or worse--staying angry, and to get rid of this spiteful lover, even if he was only texting her little cosas, poems sometimes. Jesus, this was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday.    “Mija,” he said. “How can I help?”   I looked at his eyes, outlined with blue eyeliner, smeared slightly at the edge. I knew I had to ask him then or never. I breathed in and held my words in my throat, never looking away or confirming what I already knew about my life. I held my breath and exhaled slowly. Without hesitation, he answered me. “Cards can’t fix that,” he said. “Cards can only do so much, Mija.”  Aside from lighting candles to draw forth spiritual components, Melissa spends her time as a professor, wife and mother. She has written and published her work since the late 90s, making her an "actual antique" according to numerous students and loved ones. She can be found on X.com  (formerly twitter) as: mel_the_puma .